Chapter 5- The Facts About Test Scores
Chapter 5 focuses mainly on analyzing the standardized test called the NAEP. Ravitch gets right to the point that, "Critics have complained for many years that American students are not learning as much as they used to or that academic performance is flat" in the first sentence of this chapter. The entire chapter is an explanation on how test score are in fact steadily rising. She explained the detail of the scoring of the NAEP, and made it clear that a student earns a score on a scale from 0 to 500 but receiving a 250 is not a bad grade. Although as an average this would be a 50% this is not how this data is meant to be interpreted. Rather the score anables us to compare to other years and see a trend improvement over time. The goal is not to receive a 500 but perhaps a high average score than the previous year. Additionally those who interpret these scores do not realize there are also achievement levels advanced, proficient, basic, and below basic. Ravitch in fact shows readers a clear example where data was misinterpreted. Ravitch states on page 48 that, "Guggenheim assumed that students who were not 'proficient' on the NAEP were 'below grade level'". Guggenheim continued to make statements based upon that. But us readers were already aware that this is not true because besides being proficient you could be advance, or basic, leaving the rest to being below basic. Being below basic would be the only students who are below grade level as he is claiming 70% of those taking the test to be which is completely inaccurate.
This chapter was very interesting to me to not only see the advancement that we as a nation have made over the last decade, but also it was amazing to see that people were actually misinformed because a huge piece of information was missing from their analysis. This made me realize as a student and a future educator that when analyzing data I must be aware of what this data was meant for and how to read the data, and to not make assumptions. It was relieving to know that our countries education system is improving according to the NAEP. I was also intrigued by the assumptions that Ravitch made based upon the test scores of different ethnicities and how that spoke to the way in which these students were nourished and not so much to how they have been educated. But overall it was exciting to hear that the education system is improving despite what society may think considering that Guggenheim had misread the data from the NAEP.
Chapter 5 focuses mainly on analyzing the standardized test called the NAEP. Ravitch gets right to the point that, "Critics have complained for many years that American students are not learning as much as they used to or that academic performance is flat" in the first sentence of this chapter. The entire chapter is an explanation on how test score are in fact steadily rising. She explained the detail of the scoring of the NAEP, and made it clear that a student earns a score on a scale from 0 to 500 but receiving a 250 is not a bad grade. Although as an average this would be a 50% this is not how this data is meant to be interpreted. Rather the score anables us to compare to other years and see a trend improvement over time. The goal is not to receive a 500 but perhaps a high average score than the previous year. Additionally those who interpret these scores do not realize there are also achievement levels advanced, proficient, basic, and below basic. Ravitch in fact shows readers a clear example where data was misinterpreted. Ravitch states on page 48 that, "Guggenheim assumed that students who were not 'proficient' on the NAEP were 'below grade level'". Guggenheim continued to make statements based upon that. But us readers were already aware that this is not true because besides being proficient you could be advance, or basic, leaving the rest to being below basic. Being below basic would be the only students who are below grade level as he is claiming 70% of those taking the test to be which is completely inaccurate.
This chapter was very interesting to me to not only see the advancement that we as a nation have made over the last decade, but also it was amazing to see that people were actually misinformed because a huge piece of information was missing from their analysis. This made me realize as a student and a future educator that when analyzing data I must be aware of what this data was meant for and how to read the data, and to not make assumptions. It was relieving to know that our countries education system is improving according to the NAEP. I was also intrigued by the assumptions that Ravitch made based upon the test scores of different ethnicities and how that spoke to the way in which these students were nourished and not so much to how they have been educated. But overall it was exciting to hear that the education system is improving despite what society may think considering that Guggenheim had misread the data from the NAEP.